This activity models the states of matter and students investigate those states with a balloon/straw rocket.
Watch the ZOOM cast discover which insulator -- newspaper or aluminum foil -- is better at keeping an ice cube frozen longer.
This resource was created by Tessa Avery and Chris Swalley, in collaboration with Dawn DeTurk, Hannah Blomstedt, and Julie Albrecht, as part of ESU2's Integrating the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education, practice, and coaching.
This interactive activity from the NOVA Web site challenges you to think like Einstein and understand how time travel might be possible.
This illustrated essay from the NOVA Web site answers questions about irregularities in the tides.
For this unit plan, see the old unit calendar (link on left sidebar, click ALT7 tab at the bottom). Once we update this unit to the new Doc template, we will post it here. This is now unit 7, but it used to be unit 4 (we will update file and folder numbering as we continue to revise the units). Thanks for your patience as we work hard this year to update all of the materials to the new unit template and unit/standards arrangements.
How can you pick up an ice cube with a string? Watch this video segment adapted from ZOOM to see how salt can help.
Students are introduced to the similarities and differences in the behaviors of elastic solids and viscous fluids. Several types of fluid behaviors are described Bingham plastic, Newtonian, shear thinning and shear thickening along with their respective shear stress vs. rate of shearing strain diagrams. In addition, fluid material properties such as viscosity are introduced, along with the methods that engineers use to determine those physical properties.
This article assembles free resources from the Water, Ice, and Snow issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine into a unit outline based on the 5E learning cycle framework. Outlines are provided for Grades K-2 and 3-5.
This video/animation shows that a molecule of water is made up of oxygen and hydrogen atoms. When oxygen and hydrogen atoms exist alone, their properties are different from the properties they have when they are chemically combined to form a water molecule.
Investigating Density: Can water change density?
In this Matter and Energy Name Game, students learn each other’s names through a chant about energy and matter, then each dance in the spotlight when it’s their turn. It gives students a fun introduction to some words relating to matter and energy that the instructor can refer back to during later learning experiences. It also provides an opportunity for each student to feel “seen” at the beginning of a field experience.